In Praise of the Pringles Tube.

What is one of the most versatile things in the model railway hobby that has nothing to do with the hobby?

How overlooked is this humble item?

That’s right. The Pringles tube. The cylinder that holds those processed potato snacks has many varied uses in the hobby. Who amongst us uses them to store styrene rod and strip? I do. I have one for rod, one for strip, one for angle and one for misplaced offcuts.

Styrene storage

The cylindrical section has many uses for structures on layouts. Grain elevators in H0 scale for example. Slice them down in height and they’ll make big oil storage tanks in N. I’m sure many will have used them as the base for other things for a layout.

Now I have discovered something new for them to be the basis for. A cupola blast furnace in 7/8ths inch to the foot scale. 

That’s right. This container is a good size for the central feature for this new micro layout.

How on earth did I discover this?

I had spent a lot of time studying the photo that I took of the foundry at Llanberis looking at the detail in the furnace trying to work out the size of it. I wished I’d taken more photos. My best guess for the size was three feet in diameter, maybe a bit more. I didn’t even know anything about blast furnaces to have an idea.

Luckily, I was saved by James Waterfield and Volume 1 of his study of the railways of Sir Arthur Heywood. To start with, that’s where I learnt the name. Cupola Furnace. The furnace was discussed and the iron making process too. Sir Arthur’s furnace was described as being small. The capacity was barely enough to cast two locomotive cylinders at once. A dimension of 2’ 3” outside diameter was mentioned, and along with an annotated drawing of a furnace that was enough to get me thinking. 

A quick measure of my photo showed that this furnace was larger than that. Is it three feet? Maybe, but likely more than that. Perhaps four feet. I don’t know. Three feet six inches diameter seems a pretty reasonable compromise. That would put the charging floor (another term I learned from James’ Book) seven to eight feet off the ground. Which looked that it was about right. A three foot six diameter furnace it was then.

All this thinking made me peckish. I reached for, (you guessed it,) the Pringles. 

Hang on a moment… this is a cylinder… what size is it?

I found a ruler. 74mm. In 7/8ths inch scale, a foot is 22.225mm that makes the Pringle tube approximately three feet four inches in diameter (about one metre in new money). That’s seems pretty close to what I was thinking, and good enough to start to size things up. 

I think that’s a pretty good comparison don’t you?

This simple discovery really helped the design process to come together. The ideas as you can expect, came quickly, and a mock up was quickly put together.

The first mock up

I sat in front of this scene and stared at it for an absolute age. I got quite lost in it, getting a feel for atmosphere. Already I feel better about the size of things and the possibility of a true micro in 7/8ths inch scale. The old baseboard I used is 36” x 14” (915 x 355mm) and the short train fits in there quite well with the furnace, and I was prompted to do a quick sketch.

I think this all shows some promise. I have no track plan right now, and that’s pretty important, but the mock up definitely shows that things should fit in pretty well.

To think that this morning I had I little to no idea at all what to do. I had no feel for the size and bulk of things, until I came across a Pringles tube. 

It’s amazing how things can come together, isn’t it?